I hadn’t meant to say it. Hadn’t even realized I was speaking until the words were already out—spilling like blood from an unstitched wound.
"I came earlier. A week earlier. They made me forget—"
Hana froze mid-step, the color draining from her face. "Shinra...?"
But I wasn’t talking to her. I was talking to the ghosts in my own skull, to the memories that slithered between my neurons like parasites.
"The bodies. The—the woman. I cut her open and I—"
My breath came in jagged gasps. The walls pulsed. The air smelled like copper and burnt sugar.
Hana dropped to her knees in front of me, her hands hovering just above my shoulders—afraid to touch, afraid not to.
"Listen to me," she said, voice cracking. "Whatever you remember—whatever you think you did—that wasn’t you. Do you understand? That wasn’t you.*
But the words rang hollow.
Because I knew. The weight of the knife. The way the blood had steamed in the cold air.
It was me.
Hana stood abruptly. "I’m going to the lab. I’ll find answers. I swear it."
She left before I could tell her not to bother.
The bathroom light buzzed like a dying wasp.
I clutched the sink, my fingernails scraping porcelain. The water ran clear, but when I splashed my face, it smelled faintly of iron. I looked up—
—and the Reflection was already waiting.
Its eyes were my eyes. Its face was my face. But where my expression was fractured with guilt, the Reflection's was terrifyingly calm.
"You left our work unfinished," it said. A drop of water slid down the mirror—except it wasn’t water. It was a tear of blood. "They would have hurt her. All of them."
My hands shook. "You killed children—"
"I killed futures," the Reflection corrected. Its voice was my own, but layered—like two recordings playing a millisecond apart. "Every corpse was a guarantee she'd never scream in that lab. You know I'm right."
The Reflection pressed its palm against the glass. The surface rippled like liquid mercury.
"Let me finish this. Before it's too late."
My fist shattered the mirror.
Glass rained into the sink. Each shard showed a different memory:
In one, the Reflection stood over a man sobbing on his knees ("Your son will hold the blowtorch—")
In another, it tucked a photo of Mom safely into its pocket before lighting a house on fire
The largest fragment showed the Reflection cradling a child’s face—then snapping its neck with clinical precision
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"No more pain," the shards whispered in unison. "No more experiments. I fixed it."
Blood dripped from my knuckles onto the broken glass. The Reflection's image smiled up at me from every crimson-smeared piece.
From the drain: a wet, rattling breath.
The hallway stretched unnaturally long as I stumbled forward. The walls whispered:
"You wanted them dead too. You just lacked the courage."
Ren caught me at the stairs, eyes widening at the blood.
"Shinra, what the hell—?"
But how could I explain? That my other self wasn't a monster—just a version of me that loved too violently? That every kill had been a gift wrapped in screams?
Ren’s hands moved with military precision.
The first aid kit snapped open—alcohol swabs, gauze, sutures laid out in neat rows like soldiers at attention. He didn’t ask questions as he worked.
Clean the wound. Apply pressure. Stitch if necessary.
Army field medicine drilled into him over a decade ago. I watched through a haze as Ren’s fingers—steady, scarred, alive—dabbed antiseptic along my split knuckles. The sting barely registered.
"Deep one here," Ren muttered, threading a suture needle with practiced ease. "Gonna need two stitches. Hold still."
The needle bit into flesh. I didn’t flinch.
Ren’s jaw tightened as he tied off the thread. "You’re lucky it didn’t hit the tendon." A beat. Then, quieter: "Who were you talking to in there?"
I stared at the bandages—white and pristine, already blotting red at the center.
Someone who thinks he’s saving Mom.Someone who’s me.
The words lodged in my throat like broken glass.
Ren exhaled through his nose and snapped the first aid kit shut. "Right. Well. Next time you wanna redecorate, use a hammer, yeah?"
The joke fell flat. The silence that followed was worse.
Somewhere in the house, a pipe groaned.
I was moving before I realized it.
Past Ren’s startled curse. Through the front door that screamed on its hinges. Into the night air that did nothing to cleanse the stench of blood in my nose.
Then—
—my body unfolded into motion.
I ran.
Not from something. Toward.
My feet struck the pavement with perfect, measured precision—each step launching me forward like a coiled spring released. My arms pumped in razor-sharp rhythm, elbows driving back like pistons. The night air sliced past my face as I leaned into the sprint, my center of gravity perfectly balanced despite the dizzying speed.
I'd never moved like this before. Never could have.
But the Reflection could.
And right now, its muscle memory was carrying me toward the truth.
The memories were a trail of breadcrumbs now—a week of violence I needed to retrace. If even one of those houses still stood, if one corpse remained unburied...
I’d find proof.
Of what I’d done.
Of what I might still do.
The streetlights blurred as I ran faster, my bandaged hand leaving red fingerprints on the pavement.
Somewhere ahead, the first grave waited.
The basement lab hummed with the sound of Karen's processors working overtime. Hana's fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling up files she'd never wanted to access.
"Vitals erratic... Pupil dilation abnormal... Goddamn it, how did I miss this?" Her knuckles whitened around the edge of the desk. "Karen, cross-reference Shinra's neurological scans with dissociative cases from—"
The door hissed open. Ren stood silhouetted in the doorway, his face unreadable.
"He's gone," he said simply.
Hana didn't turn around. "I know."
"Ran out like the devil himself was on his heels." Ren stepped inside, eyeing the screens. "What the hell's happening to him?"
Karen's hologram flickered. "Analysis: Subject exhibits classic dissociative identity markers combined with—"
"He's splitting, Ren!" Hana finally whirled around, Karen clutched to her chest like a lifeline.
"And it's my fault! I'm a doctor—I should've seen the signs the moment he started talking to mirrors!"
Ren crossed the room in three strides, gripping her shoulders. "Hey. None of that. The kid's been through hell we can't even imagine."
Hana's hands shook around Karen's casing. "He's retracing their steps now. The... the ones it made him forget. When he sees what's waiting—"
"We'll find him." Ren tapped his phone. "Still got his location. Kid couldn't ditch the family tracker if he tried."
"It's not where he is that scares me." Hana held up Karen, the AI's ports glowing ominously. "It's this. The footage from that missing week. He needs to see it wasn't him."
On Karen's screen, a video file blinked:
[FOOTAGE_0219-0225/2025]
The timestamp matched exactly with Shinra's lost days.
Ren's jaw tightened. "What's on it?"
Hana's thumb hovered over the play button.
"Proof," she whispered. "That the hands that killed those people... weren't his."
"He's having a mental breakdown thinking he killed people, innocent people. He thinks he killed children, a pregnant woman, entire families, but he didn't. it wasn't him"